Road work starting on Cedar Avenue

The long-term vision for Cedar Avenue is grand: Buses zipping along the shoulders between shiny new stations.

The short-term vision is perhaps a little more frustrating: Orange cones and two years of construction.

After years of planning, road construction gets underway this week on Cedar Avenue to make way for bus rapid transit in 2012.

The thoroughfare will get a total makeover through Apple Valley and Lakeville, as crews widen the shoulders to accommodate buses. Some intersections and accesses will be modified -- restricting left turns or cross traffic -- and streets will be spruced up for pedestrians.

"I'm very excited about the fact that it's going to happen," said Dakota County Commissioner Will Branning, a longtime advocate of the project and chair of the county's regional rail authority. "Until now, it's been called planning, designing and scrounging for money. It's going to happen."

At $34 million, the road construction contract is the most expensive ever for Dakota County. An official groundbreaking will be held on April 11.

Work begins at a touchy time for transit.

The county is still short about $9 million of the $118 million needed for the first phase of the project, which includes the road construction, new stations, buses and technology for the 2012 launch.

Still, bus rapid transit is billed as a less costly alternative to light rail.

Priority at stoplights

The bus service will operate in many ways that mirror light rail.

Instead of a train on tracks, bus rapid transit relies on buses running in dedicated lanes between stations. Like a train, the buses will stop at every station, with a new bus coming along every 10 to 15 minutes.

Three of the biggest stops are already in place -- the park-and-ride facilities at 181st Street in Lakeville, the Apple Valley Transit Station near 155th Street, and the Cedar Grove Station near Hwy. 13 in Eagan. Additional stations, designed for walkers or bicyclists, will be built by 2012 at 140th Street and 147th Street in Apple Valley and 161st Street in Lakeville.

Along their route, the buses will get priority at stoplights, much like the light rail trains on the Hiawatha Line. A transponder in each bus will notify the traffic light system at an intersection, and the traffic signal will take that into account when deciding how to cycle the lights. The signal may extend a green light or bring up a green light more quickly when possible.

Construction sequence

The roadwork will begin in the southbound lanes of Cedar Avenue near 155th Street and continue down toward Dodd Road. A couple of weeks later, simultaneous work will begin on the northbound side of Cedar Avenue along that same stretch.

The construction crews are expected to work on that southern section of Cedar Avenue this year, possibly getting as far north as County Road 42. After a winter break, they will then tackle the northern stretch up to 138th Street in 2012.

At least one lane in each direction will remain open during construction. In places where the road is currently three lanes wide, there will likely be two lanes open.

"There are a lot of steps to this," said Ross Beckwith, Dakota County's construction engineer. "It's a huge project, and there's tons of traffic and there's a lot of businesses that obviously rely on people getting into there."

Ed Kearney, president of the Apple Valley Chamber of Commerce, said business owners will be paying close attention.

After some contentious meetings with the county about closing accesses and changing intersections, he said most local business owners are happy with the bus rapid transit plans but anxious about keeping customers coming during construction.

"We're all crossing our fingers and hoping it goes very smoothly," Kearney said.